January 16 Letters: No substitute for putting in the hours at school

I SEE that there is yet another scheme afoot to try and improve the performance of schools in Yorkshire, as reported in The Yorkshire Post. There have been numerous reports in the past about the education, or lack of it, of today’s younger generation and the fact that they are ill-equipped, when leaving school, for industry or further education.

The other day I was driving along Headsland Road in Liversedge at 3pm, and as I approached the A62, I was held up by a continual stream of students who had just been released from the local school. These were not, I might add, infant or junior school pupils but teenagers from the Spen Valley Senior school.

My point in raising this matter is that when I was at secondary school we finished school at 4.15pm, and then had a lengthy bus journey home in time for tea.

After tea, we were expected to do homework for a further two hours each day. Today’s students cannot be expected to absorb all the knowledge required of this ever-complex world we live in if they do not put in the hours.

Instead of tinkering with the curriculum on a regular basis, would our politicians not be better leaving it to the teachers to teach over a longer period each day?